It was while on the hike towards one of the mansions she saw on her map that Zeta began to do something she was pretty sure was not normal for one to do..even someone as "different" as herself. When she coughed, bits of mushroom spores floating out of her mouth and into the air. Sometimes, the spores were so thick she had to vomit them out in a disgusting pile of grey goo.

Antibiotics weren't helping and she couldn't figure out how to use a first aid on something on the inside of her, so she took a chance and ate some of the anti-fungal meds she'd kept from the lab. She immediate felt something crawling beneath her skin and once it was done she no longer felt the need to cough and she no longer tasted morel.

She trudged across a bridge and found the most beautiful thing she's seen: a working solar car. She dumps everything she has into the trunk and very, very carefully continues down the road in her new ride (only occasionally making road kill).

A quick pop into a lab and a look at a computer reveals more of the surrounding area, and her day only continues to get better when she digs through the first mansion: A library's worth of useful reading materials, the knowledge of things she's never imagined, and on display in the front hall of the manor: armor. Suits of chain mail and ancient weaponry..and one of the suits could have been tailored for her exact measurements.

Decked out from head to foot in metal and wielding a diamond coated machete she got from a machine in the lab, she boldly took her vehicle down to the nearby town. She knew about Zed by this time, having met him in the lab, and she was disappointed to see that he was infesting the homes and businesses of Sherborn.

She's all but immune to zombie teeth and claws and only has to worry about damage when she's surrounded and pinned by numbers. With her shinning machete and her suit of armor, though, she's struck down the abominations around the Fire station on the edge of town and made it her castle.

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Quote from: Dalmeth

I've come to the conclusion that relaxing is not the lack of doing anything, but doing something that comes easily to you.

On day 4, it finally happened: Brandon woke up to the sound of a tough zombie gnawing on his metal leg. He dispatched the zombie easily enough, but realized with a startling clarity that the move out of Ray's house couldn't wait. Too many windows had been broken and too many curtains ripped down. They couldn't stay there anymore.

Surprisingly, even though Roy and Brandon never warmed up to each other and their alliance is shaky at best, Roy finally agreed to move out of the house with his cyborg 'bodyguard' (17% chance of success on the persuasion roll, go me!). They waited for nightfall, then packed their most important belongings (mostly food, some spare clothes, a sewing kit and a couple books) into a shopping cart and made their way east to the office tower, giving the roads and other buildings a wide berth. They encountered a handful of the lesser zombie forms, and Roy impressed Brandon by proving to be quite a beast in combat. Now that they were forced to actually talk to each other for any length of time, Brandon learned that Roy is still a novice at combat, but is using quite an impressive melee weapon. I haven't yet figured out how to check what weapon he's using.

Brandon already knew that Roy specialized in the field of medicine, but now that he was hearing more about it, his respect for his fellow lab escapee grew. No wonder Roy managed to do what Brandon himself could not: remove most of the cyborg's broken bionics without causing lasting harm. (Roy has 9 in first aid, which is an insane value for a new-ish NPC).

The pair arrived at the office tower and discovered it wasn't as zombie infested as they'd feared. They also discovered a vast underground parking area, but didn't take the time to explore it. They chose the first reasonably secure, windowless room for their new home and dragged some swivel chairs there to serve as beds. Belatedly, they realized they'd forgotten something very important at the old home: the down-filled pillows and bedsheets, their only means of staying warm at night!

So they had no choice but to make another trip across the field back to that house, killing a few more zombies along the way and trembling so hard their legs were shaking. Not even all of the clothes Brandon had looted from nearby buildings protected him from being chilled to the bone. Fortunately, they managed to retrieve the bedding and make their way back to the tower, where they eventually warmed up a bit, wrapped in bedsheets and still shivering on their swivel chairs. I'm not yet sure where and how they're going to make a cooking fire without burning the building down, but they've only explored a few rooms on the first floor so far. (click to enlarge!)

I typically run with size 16 cities, being setting 6 apart. Sometimes I put things into an Eternal Season, but only if I want an easier game experience.

If you are using the latest experimental builds, static NPCs are turned on by default. You won't really see any random wanderers with static, but you'll find some buildings that have inhabitants; more if you are using some of the extra buildings and location option mods.

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Quote from: Dalmeth

I've come to the conclusion that relaxing is not the lack of doing anything, but doing something that comes easily to you.

I typically run with size 16 cities, being setting 6 apart. Sometimes I put things into an Eternal Season, but only if I want an easier game experience.

If you are using the latest experimental builds, static NPCs are turned on by default. You won't really see any random wanderers with static, but you'll find some buildings that have inhabitants; more if you are using some of the extra buildings and location option mods.

Size 6 cities, 6 apart. I put them 8 apart at first but discovered that it made the early game superbly hard, especially if you were starting in a forest in early spring. So 6 / 6 it is.

I reduce item spawns to 0.5 of the default 1, and zombie spawns to 0.7 though the difference isn't really noticeable. There's still a LOT of zombies. Static and random NPCs are both on (I remember having to turn both of them on in the settings), season length I recently changed to 30 days. The NPC spawn rate I doubled to 0.20 from the original 0.10. Hordes are now on for the first time, I had them off before. The zombie evolution factor is at 8.0.

I also use a LOT of mods including merchants and bandits. Simplified nutrition is off, worrying about a balanced diet is fun(tm). Once I feel daring enough to run PK's rebalance with the acid rain and the 'Demons from Doom' faction, it supposedly turns Cataclysm into a whole new game. Looking forward to it.

Moe, if you turn static NPCs on you'll start with an NPC (who's there with you, but not necessarily an ally who will travel with you) in every new game, which makes the early game a bit more manageable because you can bring zombies back to where you first appeared and whack them together with the NPC. They also tend to have a lighter you can trade for if you don't find one. Had to do this in my current game, couldn't find a lighter or matchbook so Brandon is using Roy's.

My failure to penetrate the cursed laboratory still weighs heavily on me. Constant hunger for flesh is a terrible burden, but have been managing. These damned paws, though, are making it impossible to build the tools needed to fix up the solar car and the RV. I need to fix up myself first. Time for drastic measures.

Load up tools, food, and war supplies. Step outside, have trouble seeing. Somehow became near-sighted. One more reason I need to find a way to manage these mutations better. Fortunately, remember looting some glasses. Grab them from the junk pile in workshop. Much better. Head on down to the lab. Don't even bother waiting for night. Want to be able to see this one anyway.

"FUCK YOU, SCIENCE!"

Arm the mini-nuke.

Pull back to a hopefully safe distance, next to my broken down solar car. Sit against the bumper and have a snack while waiting for thermonuclear explosive to do its thing.

BOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!! Ears ring.

Go closer to check out handy work. That certainly did the trick. Front of the building caved in.

Rush into the building and start scoping it out. See some security bots but duck out of the way before they see me. Not much in the way of supplies. Find a bottle of denatured alcohol. Find stairway. Find patient cells. Full of bad memories. Also manhacks, but those are easier to smash.

Place is WAY bigger underground. See dead zombies. Guess the infection got in. Hear talking. Not sure if people or robots. Avoid voices in any case. Not finding a lot of stuff. It's really cold in here. Search forever. Place is huge and SERIOUSLY creepy. Zombies. Voices. Killer robots. Find some useful stuff but nothing that seems like advanced genetic medicine. Decide I've had enough, find way back to entrance.

Take some meds for the fallout and for zombie bite suffered inside. Feel terrible going back home. Feel like I have radiation sickness, infected bite wound, AND a cold. Take more meds then go to sleep.

Spend the next few days throwing up all over house. Radiation sucks, even if you're already a super-mutant.

You'll know when you've gotten to the bottom of a lab if you find a large room filled with Security Robots. Typically they'll be guarding some sort of device or cache of items and if you look closely there will be a discarded science ID card laying on the ground...in the middle of robot territory.

The things are armed, aggressive and have fairly long range so don't stand in the light.

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Quote from: Dalmeth

I've come to the conclusion that relaxing is not the lack of doing anything, but doing something that comes easily to you.

Hopefully the fallout will dissipate and my next trip won't end with days of puking.

Like many other things, nuclear fallout in this game is handled in a pretty realistic way and lasts a long while. You might be able to find a protective suit and tablets, though. Or a different lab.

I forgot to mention I also use the 'stats through skills' mod, which is why Brandon's intelligence went up to 8 from 5. He has a lot of int based skills. The way I interpret it, he regains more and more of his old strength (and smarts) as he survives and learns new things. He'll never be a genius, though. 10 should be the maximum int he can ever have.

I fear bullets. I basically walk around naked (with a bunch of storage stuff strapped to me) and rely on natural armor, which comes and goes. Currently I have chitin. No idea how good it is against bullets, and no idea what I have next time I feel up to raiding this place.

In other news, Brandon is now fighting pantless in boxer shorts. His very last pair of pants is about to fall apart and he doesn't want to risk losing it. He has metal legs, so whatever. It's slightly chilly to go out like that, but it works... Roy doesn't seem to mind, but always stays at the very edge of Brandon's FoV, eyeing him warily.

Boil water, eat jerky, but can't keep it down. Read a bit, then go to bed.

Woken up in the middle of the night by a noise. Peek outside. It's a deer. Grab bow, shoot it dead. Very convenient; almost out of jerky. Literally eat the entire deer. Still hungry.

Literally puke up the entire deer. Go sleep more.

Finish all of the food. Boil all of the bones. Still famished. Have to go out and find something to eat. Anything. Except fruits, vegetables or grains. Gross.

Come across a zombie corpse. Am actually that desperate. Scavenge other corpses. Fill cart with meat. Fresh meat. Rotten meat. An animal like me doesn't care. Though decide not to go as far as to eat the zombie meat. Yet.

None of it stays down.

Two days later, have to go out again. Kill a few more dogs. Stop by the lab. Radioactive cloud seems to be dissipating.

See a dead Z on the way back, go over to smash it up properly and it suddenly get up! Have quick fight, but in weakened state take a deep bite. Don't have disinfectant on me, but have antibiotics.

I suspect that most survivors end up running about in the nude for an extended amount of time.

Zeta has been fortunate enough to hold onto her dignity. She fashioned herself a sturdy set of leather underthings and an undershirt to fit beneath her suit of chainmail (she never knew how chaffing and pinching the stuff really was until she spent a day in it) and has only needed the occasional stitch to keep going.

She has had to replace her footwear, however. Hubris almost got the best of her when she took herself to the town hospital and thought she could easily fend off Zed's infestation and make out with all the wonderful, wonderful medications and drugs left laying about. Turns out that while chainmail was nearly immune to the acid some of the changed spewed, her leggings and combat boots were not. Her, now, extensive knowledge in Ninjitsu saved her life as she dragged her two-broken-legged self into an acid-free corner of the building and beat down anything that got close.

Her desperate search for pain meds and hopefully some medical gauze yielded up a boon, though. She found a what looked like a working terminal in one of the rooms and hacked the password. Computers had always been her friends, but when this one instructed her to lean forward and place her chin on a metal stand it stuck a needle into her eye and pumped her system full of something excruciatingly painful.

After the needle withdrew and her quick scream was done, she dropped onto the nearby bed and tried waiting for whatever it was inside of her to either finish her off or work its way out of her system. It was almost like being back in the lab undergoing experimentation as she felt her bones shift inside her muscle and skin. After a few minutes, however, she noticed that her legs were working far better than they had been...

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Quote from: Dalmeth

I've come to the conclusion that relaxing is not the lack of doing anything, but doing something that comes easily to you.

I suspect that most survivors end up running about in the nude for an extended amount of time.

It's possible to make MOST pieces of clothing at fairly modest tailoring skill level (3), but not pants or shoes. At tailoring 4, still no pant or shoe recipes (except cargo shorts). And repairing cargo pants is still impossibly difficult. Then again, Brandon Head isn't the most delicately inclined cyborg in the world and that little sewing needle feels very strange in his big hand of steel.

Sadly, Roy was critically wounded during a recent outing - he had his left leg nearly melted off by a spitter's acid. Brandon helped him limp home, gathered everything needed, and made a splint for his protégé. Left him at the base to recover and went out the following night, only to find poor Roy bleeding on the floor and being very nearly clawed to death by a zombie child. Bandages and the two remaining first aid kits saved the scientist's life, but the poor guy now has both of his arms broken - in addition to his leg. OUCH. Teaches me to pay attention to broken windows that can spread the scent of any survivors inside...

So now Brandon has to make two arm splints and Roy won't do anything or go anywhere for a month or two. Their roles have become reversed - at the beginning, the cyborg was the helpless one, needing the scientist's help to remove the broken bionics that would have killed him. Now he's nursing the man in the tattered lab coat. Since he's literally programmed to help and protect humans, he'll be DEVASTATED if Roy dies. Other survivors are too scared of him to even talk to him, or even outright hostile.

If only he could find a way to cure / remove his deformities and appear more human. Or at least find one of those books that teach cyborgs how to talk to people...

Moe, radiation in Cataclysm is as invisible as it is in real life. Even if the dust settles, you won't know how badly irradiated the area is unless you find a Geiger counter or irradiation badge.

Yeah but in real life radioactive dust in the air after an event is WAY more dangerous than contamination on the ground.

I think I may have gotten a pretty huge dose. It's been a week since expose and still really sick. If I'm understanding the number on the UI right, I probably have to endure another week before I'm cured. The Prussian blue tablet isn't helping much. (Or maybe it's the reason I'm not straight up dead.)

Yeah but in real life radioactive dust in the air after an event is WAY more dangerous than contamination on the ground.

I think I may have gotten a pretty huge dose. It's been a week since expose and still really sick. If I'm understanding the number on the UI right, I probably have to endure another week before I'm cured. The Prussian blue tablet isn't helping much. (Or maybe it's the reason I'm not straight up dead.)

From my own observations, one tablet cures one point of radiation if taken daily.

I've had survivors take upwards of 20 rads and live, in past games. Barely. And it was only with those who had managed to build up a stockpile of essentials.

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Quote from: Dalmeth

I've come to the conclusion that relaxing is not the lack of doing anything, but doing something that comes easily to you.

Guys, I want to try to give this game a chance, but i'm terribly bad at it. Please give me tips beyond the key commands.

Tip #1: You will die. You will die often. It's Armageddon, without PCs to either hinder or help. Get used to it.

Tip #2: When making a character, think about what you want to do. Do you want to fight things? Do you want to make things? Do you want to just go nuts, do whatever? Depending on what you want to do, focus on the appropriate stats and skills.If you want to fight, do you want to fight at range or in melee? Sooner or later you will HAVE to fight something, so investing a little into combat stats and skills is good for any character. Strength is a must, as well as Dexterity. 8-9 points in either is doable but 10 is a solid number. For ranged combatants, you'll also want higher Perception. This will also let you notice things you would not normally notice, such as traps and landmines. Once again, 8-9 is doable with 10 being the target number.Pick a fighting style from the beginning. Unarmed combat may get you right into the thick of things and thus far more likely to die very, very fast but it is also a life saver at the same time. You can rely on simply picking something up and using it as a weapon or resorting to good ol' fisticuffs, but having a trained combat style is far more effective.Setting said style is done by use of the "_" key.Ranged combat is by far the safer method of combat, but it is more resource intensive. Finding guns and ammunition for your specific gun type can be a trial..and guns are noisy. Zed hates noise and will swarm the are they heard it in. Bows and arrows are almost silent but they do less damage and have less range. They do have the benefit of being easily attainable through crafting.

Tip #3Food and water and shelter. The three things that, besides not dying to Zed, will be your primary goals.Water can be obtained through rivers, swamps, collected rain and the toilets of abandoned buildings. There are also plenty of other drinking options, like soda and beer, that can be found while scavenging, but they are not as thirst quenching as good ol' H2O. Take care when drinking plain "water" instead of "clean water." You run the risk of getting food poisoning.Food is a bit trickier. There are many ways to get it, but getting a steady source or a vast stockpile is every survivor's dream. Scavenging homes and buildings for what is left can net you some immediate needs, but much of it is prone to spoilage. As pointed out in earlier posts, foraging through brush in the forests is a renewable source of easily attainable food at the beginning, provided you have a Survival skill of 3 or higher. You can collect things like berries, eggs, wild vegetables, etc, that can be cooked or eaten raw. Cooked food is better for you.

Guys, I want to try to give this game a chance, but i'm terribly bad at it. Please give me tips beyond the key commands.

My personal tips:

I like having characters rely on Unarmed/Melee combat. It makes it so that I always have a weapon when I need it, be it my fists-of-fury or a convenient two-by-four I can use to bash in Zed heads. You can get an Unarmed style with a new character by picking the traits "martial arts training," "self-defense training," etc, during character creation. These will give you a list of options to choose from when you actually put your character into play. Ninjitsu and Krav Maga are my go-to's, but I have enormous amounts of fun with the Scorpion style from the Five Deadly Venoms and Dragon style of Kung-Fu. Both have power attacks that stun and knock-back those who are hit by them. Bear in mind, though, that all unarmed moves are not controllable.

I try setting up my base/camping spots next to a source of water, such as swamps or rivers. Swamp water is mostly undrinkable salt water and has dangerous beasts in them, but you can boil salt into clean water and there's brush through which you can search for edibles, as well as cattails which are edible after cooking (also a source of plant fiber). Rivers have drinkable water, fish and less monsters to worry about but fishing is a difficult survival check, even after you've managed to get a fishing rod.

Farming is my preferred method of getting food. You can get seeds from the things you scavenge from bushes or find different varieties in gardening stores in towns and cities. It's a long-term, prep intensive method, however. You need the seeds, you need a digging implement, you need to till the soil you want to plant a single seed in, the weather has to be warm enough to plant, plants don't grow in winter, and you have to wait until your food grows, harvest it and THEN (depending on what you planted), cook it. My favorite crops are oats, buckwheat and wheat as you can turn all of those into some form of flour (which doesn't perish) and make bread out of them. This way you can plant a massive amount and stockpile enough food to feed yourself for weeks and, later, years.

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Quote from: Dalmeth

I've come to the conclusion that relaxing is not the lack of doing anything, but doing something that comes easily to you.